WCQ Preview: Spain - Bosnia-Herzegovina

Carry on where you left off will be the stark message to the Spain team when they take to the field for their first home game since winning the European Championships over the summer. Bosnia-Herzegovina will try and be the spoilers at a party that has been 44-years in the making and they will have some job to prevent the host nation from celebrating their triumph in style.

The thing is however, that it would be just like Spain to have an off-day and spoil the celebrations themselves given their past record of not performing when both the fans and pundits most expect them to. But with Vicente del Bosque at the helm, la Roja do have a steady hand in control and his calm guidance will give the players the reassurance that they need to cope with the pressure.

For a team that has always been able to call upon such an array of players with great technique and ability, it is surprising that it took so long for them to become mentally right and now the task will be to keep that feeling of belief within the camp as they start on the road to South Africa and the 2010 World Cup Finals.

Luis Aragonés felt the pressure two years ago when he began the qualifying phase for Euro 2008 and felt so discouraged after defeats by Northern Ireland Sweden in their second and third matches that he offered his resignation. When it was turned down by the Spanish Football Federation the same critics that spoke out against his decision to stay after the World Cup Finals were very vocal again.

Against The Odds

That pressure and criticism continued from the Madrid-biased media as the veteran trainer refused to reinstate Raúl González into the squad after feeling that the forward had been one of a number of players trying to undermine him during the World Cup Finals in 2006. All those cynics were very quiet in July when a Raúl-less Spain side led by Aragonés beat Germany to win the European Championships.

Del Bosque's arrival at the helm gave the Madrid captain's camp some hope of his international career being put back on the rails, but even his former club coach has opted to omit him because neither he nor his supporters can justify his place in the squad. Instead, when Fernando Torres picked up a knock the trainer called upon the next generation by naming Barça's 18-year-old goalscorer Bojan Krkic to step up.

While the new coach has followed that and other ideas put in place by Aragonés he is also working on implementing his own slight changes to the system and the team and is expected to shuffle things around just a bit for this encounter. Already it appears that Del Bosque has won over the players with his methods with all of them coming out and stating that he will be a resounding success.

Despite not having been involved at a coaching level in Spanish football for five years, his reputation is still very good and now it appears is set to be enhanced further within the game. Those looking on from the outside will only be convinced by results and performances and that is why it is vital the team do not make any slip-ups early on.

Bosnia-Herzegovina fell some way short in their qualifying campaign for Euro 2008 as they won just four of their 12 encounters and were beaten on no less than seven occasions to finish some ten points behind third-placed Norway in fourth spot. Miroslav Blažević, the very experienced coach who has previously been in charge of Croatia and Iran at international level, will be hoping for an improvement during the forthcoming campaign.

RECENT FORM

Spain

14/06/08 2-1 EC Sweden
18/06/08 2-1 EC Greece
22/06/08 0-0 EC Italy
26/06/08 3-0 EC Russia
29/06/08 1-0 EC Germany
20/08/08 3-0 Fri Denmark


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